On Wednesday May 1, 2012 my family received a letter from FCPS Advanced Academics Department stating that our rising 4th grader had been found eligible for level IV services. Level IV, according to the FCPS website; provides full time academic placement for highly gifted children. She currently attends Cunningham Park where there is no local level 4, so her center would be Louise Archer Elementary
The letter stated that “Due to overcrowding at Louise Archer Elementary, that school has been closed to center placements. The center serving your local school is now Colvin Run Elementary.” This school is 5 miles away from our home and not even in our school cluster. We are cluster 2;- Falls Church, Madison, Marshall High Schools whereas Colvin Run is Cluster 1;- Herndon, Langley Mclean High Schools and … here’s the kicker … “If you choose this placement you will need to provide safe transportation.” typically a service provided for Advanced Academics Program students from their central school cluster.
I understand that a school can get overcrowded, but part of this is under FCPS control. There are kids at Louise Archer that are not in the Madison pyramid: Freedom Hill ES, Stenwood ES and West Briar ES, their level IV middle school is Kilmer, which incidentally is where half of Colvin Run level IV feed into, yet they get to stay at Louise Archer and are provided with the standard transportation. Unfortunately the town of Vienna kids have been overcrowded from their designated level IV school and moved to a new cluster with no transportation. Where is the equality in that?
This is especially true at my daughter’s base school; Cunningham Park serves a sizable population of economically disadvantaged students. There is no way for many of those parents to transport them and that’s discrimination right there.
If the bus situation is not resolved, at a push and with extra personal expense, I will be able to transport my daughter to Colvin Run. However, Cunningham Park Elementary, my daughter’s base school serves a sizable population of economically disadvantaged students. There is no way that many of those parents could transport them and that’s discrimination right there.
Parents are up-in-arms about this situation, seen on the DC Urban Moms and Dads forum. but, because only thirty students are affected FCPS has been reluctant, perhaps dismissive, in addressing the problem.
After calling the Advanced Academic Placement office I received the response it’s not their problem, phone the cluster office. On phoning the cluster office I received the response that they can’t provide it because of cost and practicality — too few kids and too many neighborhoods. While I understand that, they already have buses taking kids to schools that are out of pyramid, get them back in their correct schools and do not allow grandfathering. The situation is so political, as one poster to DC Urban Moms noted:
They did the same to the Kent Gardens kids several years ago. They moved them out of Haycock to Churchill road. Churchill Road feeds to Langley and Kent Gardens and Haycock feed to McLean. They also decided to NOT move Franklin Sherman from Haycock to Churchill road even though it is closer and Franklin Sherman split feeds to to Langley and McLean. So in the morning one bus carts the AAP in Kent Gardens west through McLean Center to Churchill Road and one bus carts Franklin Sherman kids east through McLean Center to Haycock. If they time it right the kids can wave to each other as the buses pass each other on Old Chain Bridge Road.
It all depends on which group of parents has the ear of the School Board representative. There is no logic.
Luckily for my situation one parent did have the ear of a School Board Representative. Yesterday, May, 21, 2013 I got forwarded the following email:
Pat and Patty[School Members addressed in the email],
Rich decided we need to provide transportation to the families that are newly identified for AAP and have been placed at Colvin Run for next year. We will follow up with the AAP Office to send letters to parents of students in this category letting them know that transportation will be an available option to them. The details of that transportation will need to be worked out and they are looking into that now.
I will be working on getting notification to all that are affected by this over the next few days but wanted to share it with you so you can let people know if asked since I see that you have received many emails on this topic.
Glad we could get this one off our plates.
Jim Kacur
Assistant Superintendent, Cluster II
There is obviously more than one issue going on here. The first and foremost affecting many in Vienna is transportation. All students should be provided with alternative transportation options, and in this case FCPS, due in full to parental pressure, finally caved. The second issue involves the politics surrounding level IV; if a school already has a local level IV service why is there even the option to change schools creating yet more gridlock on the roads and being a less efficient and more costly system.
Lastly, why don’t all schools have level IV? I for one am perfectly happy with my base school, if Cunningham Park had level IV, we would stay I would not expect my child to be taken to another school. By using part of the school day to shuffle children around the County is using the obviously limited resources in transportation costs, instead of their primary goal of education.